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Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

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Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#191

Post by x87678r »

rweir wrote: post #186
dragonsky wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is the average number of days holiday for an American full-time worker? Is anybody aware of any studies that compare hours worked per year against life expectancy? Is this valid: https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/long-working-hours-shor...

saved you a search: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/15/statista-how-far-behind-us-i... . includes this depressing factoid, "American workers took an average of just over 17 days of vacation in 2017, the highest level in seven years".

That's higher than I'd expect. Lots of people get zero days off.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#192

Post by bluGill »

bryan11 wrote: post #77
julienb_sea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For healthcare, you can probably segment America a little more generously into insured vs uninsured. If you are insured in America, your healthcare is reasonably good. Lower quality plans may have more restrictive networks or higher deductibles and maximums, but these are manageable and neither are truly barriers to care.

You could segment them in three sets: well insured, people with catastrophic health plans, and uninsured. Many employers are switching to high deductible health plans and that deductible may be thousands of dollars, i.e. catastrophic plans. When going to a doctor for a simple diagnosis or bloodwork can easily cost $400 to $1000, many put off doctor visits unless it's an emergency. It can easily become a choice betwee…

I have long been against employer provided health insurance. Obama promised if you like your insurance you can keep it. He was mostly correct (if you squint just right there are some minor changes to everyone's plan which you can count as not keeping it), but I don't like my health insurance - but to get a different plan means throwing away the large subsidy I get from my employer to take their plan.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#193

Post by sleepysysadmin »

Life expectancy vs healthcare expenditure isn't a good measure. I find it interesting that Smoking is way down and in the conclusion it's first as an important factor. Smoking clearly not impacting life expectancy at all.

In fact if you look at their data. Obesity/Overweight is the only factor. Not surprising given >70% are overweight.

Flipside, nothing here surprises me. The US governments actively subsidize unhealthy foods. Not to mention outright inform their people to eat unhealthy diets.

Worse than that, just look at your options for food in the USA. If you banned unhealthy foods and all current unhealthy food workers are banned for life from working in the food industry. You would be left with >90% of their food industry unemployed and practically unemployable.

What do you do with those >20 million people? Welfare system cant handle them. You might say unsubsidize these unhealthy foods and what happens? Fast food prices go way up and more people go unemployed. Same problem.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#194

Post by sammax »

xyzzyz wrote: post #175
rayiner wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you? Here in Maryland gold level plan for a single person age 36 making $35,000 a year is about $250/month, with $1,750 deductible. In France or Germany, you’d pay about 10% of your income in health insurance tax, so this is quite comparable.

In Germany, the figure is 14% of your gross salary, and in France it’s over 20%.

It should be noted that in Germany if you are employed, half of those 14% is paid for by your employer, so you only pay 7% of your gross salary yourself. And there are no deductibles. I think the closest thing to a deductible is having to pay for ambulance (about 20 euro for the trip, probably free if you can't afford it) and for hospital stays (10 euro per day, up to a maximum of 280 per year).

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#195

Post by rayiner »

apexalpha wrote: post #174
rayiner wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care is not free at the point of use “in most developed countries.” The UK NHS is an exception. Also, you’re comparing apples and oranges a bit. In the US, an epidural is standard, which requires the expensive services of an anesthesiologist. Meanwhile, the UK NHS is famous for steering women away from epidurals. In the US, getting a private room after giving birth is standard, while in the NHS you’ll be in a…

I think the exception for the NHS is that it is a single government organisation fully paid for by regular taxes. Think about your armed forces, for comparison. While there are many that don't have this kind of setup I don't know any country where care isn't free at the point of use. (Except for maybe your deductibles).

Many countries have cost sharing and co-insurance: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016885101...

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#196

Post by thinkcontext »

gleb wrote: post #114
socialdemocrat wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I recollect discussing this before one will actually save younger children in most of Nordic countries e.g. than in the US, and infant mortality rate is still much lower. There are several reasons the US rate is so much higher than in other developed countries. The US does not have universal health care, which means large sections of the US population does not get adequate follow up during pregnancy. If you…

Except that US does have universal healthcare for pregnant women. Most pregnancies and births in United States are covered by Medicaid. And Medicaid pays well for that.

Technically true, however, like much of the US safety net there are significant gaps, like co-morbidities, bureaucratic hurdles, restrictive time windows, delayed care, etc.

ProPublica, Vox and Texas Tribune did a great in depth article on this last year, "The Extraordinary Danger of Being Pregnant and Uninsured in Texas". Most of what they found is applicable across the country, Texas just happens to be particularly horrific.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-extraordinary-danger-...

edit: "And Medicaid pays well for that."

> In Texas, as in other parts of the U.S., providers are paid only about half as much for Medicaid patients as for privately insured ones.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#197

Post by hnlurker »

rayiner wrote: post #139
pavlov wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the link, the maternal mortality rate for Hispanics in US is 11.5, which is almost 4x higher than in Finland. For non-hispanic black women, the death rate is a staggering 40.8 — that's over 13x higher than Finland! Large parts of America are a third world country.

The maternal mortality rate in the US is about 50% higher than in the UK for white mothers (8 versus 12), and the same for Black mothers (about 40): https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-47115305 . Asians, meanwhile, in the US have a maternal mortality rate of about 13, which would be 4x higher than Finland, but a life expectancy of over 86 years—several years longer than Japan or Korea, and 4 years longer than Finland…

Now factor in higher rates of IVF and other "late" pregnancies that I highly suspect we have more of in USA and would easily contribute to more deaths at/near birth from complications.

Life is about tradeoffs, and many American women trade their early fertile years for career development. I think it's a bad trade, but it is a freely made one.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#198

Post by mariojv »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #120
julienb_sea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For healthcare, you can probably segment America a little more generously into insured vs uninsured. If you are insured in America, your healthcare is reasonably good. Lower quality plans may have more restrictive networks or higher deductibles and maximums, but these are manageable and neither are truly barriers to care.

I would rather be uninsured and take my chances than work a low waged job and pay for Obamacare. $500/month for a single person, highest deductible plan is ludicrous. Thats fucking 80-90% rent for many people where I live...if not 100%+.

Your premiums will be capped at a certain percentage of your income if you make around $51K or less.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#199

Post by TuringNYC »

pbadg3r wrote: post #168
socialdemocrat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even that isn't even true. The US system doesn't even benefit the wealthy. For profit health care means a lot of over-treatment which causes several problems in US health care which kills people: - Something like 2x as much surgery done in the US than in other countries, because it is profitable, not because it is needed. So perfectly health people are cut open, because they got a good insurance which can pay for…

If you're wealthy maybe you're also savvy enough to deal with the system. When a few second opinions with doctor friends are only a phone call away it's not hard to imagine better outcomes better. I recall an article on HN where a dev quit his job to do cancer research when he was diagnosed, and spent the next year getting to top 1% level in cancer analysis for his subtype. That's disposable income in action. Fatal o…

Going further, many wealthy people hire services (either part of their concierge medicine practice or a la carte) which helps them navigate the system, evaluate doctors, get appointments at the best medical practices, avoid bad doctors, evaluate the gestalt of the recommendations across all doctors, fight incorrect insurance copay/co-insurace bills, etc.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#200

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

fakedang wrote: post #162
MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well seeing as a sizable majority of human history has gotten by without health insurance for...I don't know, 10k years plus, as I've said, I'll take my chances. As for paying out of pocket, there are plenty of local urgent care centers where their business model is basically only cash. They do things from popping cysts, removing hangnails, to stitches. Lots of stuff that if you went to a hospital, would cost triple…

For a long part of the sizeable majority of human history, the average lifespan varied from 25 years to 30 years tops.

The reason mortality rates were so high was primarily due to child mortality from disease, virus, or bacterial infection. Not because people just dropped dead after 30 years. Once people got outside of the age of 20+, the average lifespan drastically improved for the individual since they survived the most difficult portion of life in terms of survival.
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